Schiavoni Petition Seeks Resignation of Sag Harbor Mayor

The acrimony between David Schiavoni and the Village of Sag Harbor reached a new level this week when Schiavoni posted a Change.org petition on Facebook calling for the resignation of Mayor Jim Larocca.

Schiavoni says the village has stonewalled his effort to reconstruct a building his family owned for decades, which was razed during the environmental cleanup at the neighboring National Grid gas ball property.

The petition, posted on the Sag Harbor Community Group page, had 54 signatures as of Monday evening. It claims that village residents have been financially harmed by Larocca’s failure to be open and transparent, and it charges that he met secretly to illegally change zoning laws and claims the mayor made deals to help advance a 107,000-square-foot project — an obvious reference to Adam Potter’s proposed affordable housing and commercial development off Bridge and Rose streets.

Larocca declined to comment on Schiavoni’s petition.

For his part, Schiavoni said by text that he planned to deliver copies of his petition to every address in the village.

Schiavoni said he was spurred to action after the Village Zoning Board of Appeals earlier this month annulled the building permit he had received last October to reconstruct the building at 31 Long Island Avenue, after years of waiting. The ZBA acted after Potter and Jay Bialsky, the owner of three waterfront condos across the street, sued the village for issuing a building permit, and a state court ordered the ZBA to hear their appeal.

The plot appeared to thicken on a separate post on the Sag Harbor Community Group page that linked to a Sag Harbor Express article about the ZBA’s denial of the Schiavoni building permit.

On that post, Jim Esposito, who briefly served as village building inspector in 2021, commented that he had planned to issue a building permit so that Schiavoni could rebuild, but “your mayor made me rip them up and throw them out.”

Although Schiavoni’s response appears to refer to Larocca as having been the mayor at that time, Kathleen Mulcahy actually held the office at that time — and her memory of events differed sharply from Esposito’s.

Mulcahy said she was trying to “fast-track” Schiavoni’s building permit, provided he planned to build a replica of the original building. But she said the proposed building was taller than the original, and Esposito pointed out that the plans showed framing that would have allowed a second floor to be added. She said Trustee Bob Plumb, a retired builder, also reviewed the plans and concurred.

Mulcahy said Esposito, whom the village terminated during his probationary period, was not pressured to deny the permit and made the decision on his own.

Mulcahy, who was defeated by Larocca in a lively mayoral race shortly thereafter, said of Esposito, “He can accuse me or Bob or anyone else, but in reality, both he and I got fired by the village, so there.”

Schiavoni on Tuesday said the proposed upper level was simply dead space that would not be used and added that he knew Mulcahy was mayor at the time. “It was just the final straw,” he said.